First, I apologize for taking so long to reply. I wrote a lengthy response to your post, but it was dropped when I executed a “back” command on the browser and it overshot the editing page and wiped out my work. I had run out of time. So this is a reconstruction of that post with some additional information.
Well, first, this is a USER forum, this is not the place to interact with WD staff and they only respond to posts when they feel it necessary to make a clarification.
I am a USER. I had installation problems that I perceived (it turns out, correctly) were due to a combination of software changes, machine malfunctions, and design limitations. I came here and asked for help. I also made suggestions as to the latter. If the WD staff chose not to help, then they should have told me where to find it and not just give me silence. Silence is totally unprofessional.
Second, what you are trying to do is not what the HUB is designed for. It is only designed to be a single output device, meaning that you connect it to a singe system.
I bought the Live Hub to play my music and video ripped from my CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes. The Live Hub has a 1TB drive; that means it has the capacity to store my media collection. The Live Hub has an Ethernet connection; that means I can (and should be able to) rip mp3 and mp4 files from my own CDs, DVDs, and tapes store them on the Live Hub as the destination drive. I should then be able to stream them back to my computer using Windows Media Player or the equivalent from any computer on my home over the Ethernet connection provided. That way I could stream all my media from one player and empty the shelves in my office bookshelves of bulky storage media in order to use them for books. I started doing just that with some mp3 files, and it worked just fine, that is, until I upgraded the firmware.
I had spent some 6 hours intermittently ripping some 60 CDs and storing them on the Live Hub. The Live Hub performed said playback function flawlessly, streaming the music to my computer. Then, after the firmware upgrade, the only output that worked was the HDMI. I could no longer access my files and to stream them to my house Ethernet network via the Live Hub Ethernet connection. The only Live Hub output from which I could play them was using the HDMI output directly into the receiver. Hence my complaint about the firmware upgrade and my question as to whether the outcome was intentional.
It is not meant to be a multi-room device, nor to output both through the HDMI and analog at the same time. If you want to have multi-room viewing, then you need to use secondary components for that.
It has an Ethernet connection, I should be able to stream those media files to any computer in my house unless WD has deliberately made them inaccessible for any playback other than the HDMI. That is what the firmware upgrade did. OK, that’s the Ethernet/firmware problem; now, on to the video problem.
Interestingly, what you say the Live Hub cannot do is the ONLY thing it would do. The only time the analog output would work is if the receiver HDMI input was selecting the Live Hub HDMI output. If I switched the receiver to a DVD player (for example) while the Live Hub was playing, then the Live Hub ANALOG video output went loopy (vertical hold problems in monochrome).
I have the necessary secondary components to distribute analog video in my home. The analog video output goes to a multiplexer/signal-amplifier which puts the video signal from the Live Hub on analog TV channel 114. The multiplexer sends that output back via coaxial cable to my video distribution panel. There, a splitter/combiner adds channel 114 to the coax cable network. That signal then gets split to be distributed throughout the house on coaxial cable. NONE of that system demands more than an analog signal from the yellow RCA jack capable of supplying a single television, which the Live Hub is designed to provide. Now, when I had the receiver looking at the Live Hub HDMI, an analog TV hooked to said coaxial network showed the Live Hub output on channel 114. Meanwhile my digital monitor also showed the Live Hub HDMI output. Both outputs were working at the same time, which you say is impossible.
I plan to replace the analog TV in the room with a big screen receiving the HDMI output from the receiver. To accomplish having two digital screens on one receiver, I plan to split the HDMI receiver output to a second digital monitor in the rack with the receiver and the Live Hub. The reason I have the rack monitor is that rack is located in a spot from which it will be difficult to see the big screen while using a USB keyboard connected to the Live Hub (for which the Live Hub was supposedly designed). Hence, I will split the HDMI output from the receiver, sending one leg to the monitor on the rack and the other to the big screen (I have the HDMI splitter/amplifier). All of that is downstream of the receiver which is downstream from the Live Hub; so splitting the output should not affect the Live Hub. Yes, I have tried removing the splitter/amplifier from the circuit to no avail. All the cables are of better than average quality.
As I said above, the only time the yellow RCA analog video output worked was when the receiver was switched to receive the Live Hub HDMI output. So, to see if the Live Hub would play the RCA analog output alone, I disconnected the HDMI cable from the Live Hub and set the Live Hub’s yellow analog video into the same video network that works perfectly when fed from a DVD player. When I fired the system up the video image was still bad. Hence, my suspicion that the Live Hub was defective, but I came here to ask the question. Fortunately (in some respects), both the HDMI and the analog video output have since died completely and I sent it back.
Third, the reason people are telling you that this is not a NAS, is because you keep refering to it as network server and asking why it couldn’t be a Raid1.
As I have told all of them, I have a separate NAS drive for data on the Ethernet network. It is Raid1. This house has TWO networks : analog coaxial cable and Cat-5e Ethernet cable combined into structured cable throughout the house. The panel switches sixteen Cat-5e lines, while the analog panel has the capacity to process sixteen coaxial lines.
It is not a network server and the reason it’s not a Raid1 is because it wasn’t designed to be.
I knew that. The point about Raid1 was simply that I would like WD to make such a product. Is that so hard to understand?
The HUB is basically a media streamer with a internal HDD, nothing more, and this is what it was designed for.
I was streaming media files via the Ethernet cable. I want to use the Live Hub as a player on EITHER, the Ethernet cable, the HDMI, or the video cable. I am not trying to send files over the Ethernet to more than one computer at a time. I do not need to have the Live Hub play on more than one output at a time. I am not sending anything out of the house in such a manner as would violate anybody’s intellectual property. What you say it was designed to do is what I want to do with it.
Yet the one and ONLY thing the Live Hub does do (or did, until it died completely) is play video on two outputs simultaneously (the HDMI and the yellow RCA analog output), which is what you say it was NOT designed to do. So your implication that I am somehow ignorant or asking too much of the player is incorrect. I simply want to play files out of the HDMI or the video output, or stream files through the Ethernet Cat-5e cable, all of which the unit is at least physically capable of doing by specification; else it is defective. To have video on both HDMI and video simultaneously was a nicety I had hoped to derive for diagnostic purposes as well as for the purposes of playing the output in other rooms should someone be bedridden and want to watch a movie, but I can do well enough without it for now. At the time I was using it I had not yet installed the big screen HDTV, in part because the HDMI from the Live Hub was so unstable.
So yes, I have requested an RMA and have received the replacement unit under warranty.
Finally, here is why I want WD to make a Raid1 Live Hub : If I rip all those CDs, DVDs, and VHS files onto my player so that I can play them back, it will take WEEKS to load, rip, unload, store, and organize the files. Weeks of time are expensive (even while multi-tasking). Raid1 would offer added security to reduce the risk to that investment for which I am willing to pay. So, while I was trying to solve those other problems with my original post, I was trying to be helpful, suggesting that WD make said better product so that they could sell more drives. Yet until your post, all I have received in feedback is that it isn’t a NAS drive.
WD makes drives. WD makes media players. That means WD (supposedly) wants to sell drives that play media. I want to buy drives that play media. So, I tried to tell WD that I want WD to make a Raid1 Live Hub with (replaceable drives and rack mountable, please). That way, they would get to sell TWICE as many drives in each Live Hub. I thought WD marketing people would like to know that somebody wants to buy more drives and thought that WD staff, seeing such a message, would obviously want to help their company by emailing the request to WD marketing staff. Not only do I want a better product, I wanted to help WD because I once knew good people who (hopefully still) work there.
Sadly, if what I’ve seen here is common at WD, his job may be in jeopardy.
That it can work to some extent as a network server does not mean that it was designed to be, end of story. If you need backups of your files, then you need to use your Raid1 for that.
I already planned to buy a USB drive for backup purposes. I will leave it disconnected most of the time to assure that it remains uncorrupted. I was going to purchase it once I had the video and music files loaded into the drive.
Forth, if you are having problems with playing MP3’s then try roling back the firmware, you can find info on that HERE.
This is the first substantive answer I have received for all this frustration. Thank you.
